Will Anne Rice the Author go to Hell/part 2

Will Anne Rice the Author go to Hell/ part 2

fiction
edward w pritchard

The car is very small too small for a taxi cab but that's what the driver uses it for. Looking out the window from the back left seat I believe we are in Manila, in the Philippines although I have never been in Manila. Also I would never ride in a taxi cab that stops and stops and let's people get in and out for a pesos if that the name of the money unit they use here. When it's my turn to pay I will use dollars.

Traffic is heavy out there and those drivers drive too fast and the motor scooters weave in and out of traffic and everyone tailgates and the noise is terrific.

Why is the other passenger in the back seat sitting like that? Upside down with her head down on the floor and her feet in the air toward the rear window of the vehicle. I must say something to the driver, she seems to be in charge although she has been talking a long time; some sort of lecture on the City I suppose for the tourists, maybe the couple crammed in the front seat with the driver. It's been a long time since I saw someone sit in the front seat in the middle, the death seat we used to call it. That's where they always put children I remember.

Now I remember why I can't concentrate on what the driver is saying, My left wrist hurts terribly, it's nailed to the left rear door by a long nail; a spike I believe it's called and there is a little crusted blood on my shirt and my lower left arm is throbbing.

The girl sitting upside down is not sitting in a very ladylike way. I must mention it to the driver. If I could get some water I could probably talk a little; even though my throat is very dry and I don't speak the language. A little while ago that girl in the rear seat tried to bite my right wrist very hard.

The driver speaks too loud. She wants to be heard by everyone over the road noise I suppose but I dislike a loud shrill voice in a woman. " Hell is real", she says, " a place of damnation and incomprehensible suffering".  " Unrepentant sinners go to Hell for eternity" she says as she swerves the vehicle hard to right jerking the nail in my left wrist against the door. Why when one swerves to the right does gravity or is it friction pull us to the left?

The couple in the front are counting money. They are Americans, she has to give him his allowance I see. Funny in a way. He won't look in the back seat. They are counting their money in advance anxious to get out of this cab and get on with their lives. It's not a comfortable vehicle we travel in.

The cab driver is a Nun. She has a habit covering her neck. I can see her face in the mirror. I recognized her at once. From the Michelangelo sculpture, "St Theresa in Ecstasy". How did a Nun learn to drive a car, a Nun from Renaissance Italy, I think, and how can she speak English? I think I am hearing her in English. " God has warned us sufficiently about Hell" the Nun says, " He mercifully gave us his sacred scriptures,  and " scripture clearly explains the punishments that are to follow for eternity for those mortal sinners who go to Hell".

The girl in the next seat to me here in the back is a Nun too. She must be from a different order because her costume is different. Feminine, she is a very small woman, at first I thought a teenage girl but I see from her face that she has had a hard life, although she doesn't look unhappy, even sitting upside down like that. What I don't understand is why did she tried to bite my wrist like that earlier? As I look at her she smiles at me" Sacrifice yourself for sinners." she says, in French, I hope I have the translation right, my French is rusty. She speaks to me again, " there is much quartz among the gold in a vein in a mine," she says, smiling at me; " sometimes it's not profitable to the miner to extract the gold from the mine because of the expense of removing the quartz." " study your bible" she says, again in French.

" Moses and the Prophets have warned us about Hell", says our driver.  I am starting to like her voice, it's not shrill but beseeching, she really wants to be understood, I guess.

We weave in and out of traffic and dash the lights regardless of color. Pedestrians dart in and out and St Theresa drives skillfully with one hand as she gives us the tour lecture. The American couple in the front won't look in the back seat and they keep looking out the front passenger side door watching for their destination. The small Nun in the rear seat sitting upside down is part of the Tour I guess.

I am the only passenger in the back seat then. " The spiritual works of Mercy are, to counsel the doubtful, to forgive all injuries, and to pray for the living and the dead,"  says St Theresa.

My wrists aches from this nail in my arm. This is a long long road we are traveling on. I hope I have the money to pay my fare when it is my turn to get out.
end part 2